


Fear Itself

by baroque_mongoose



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen, Monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:50:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2610749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baroque_mongoose/pseuds/baroque_mongoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ardsley Wooster reflects on fear... and, inevitably, on Bangladesh DuPree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear Itself

My niece Harriet is a splendid young woman, and I am more than proud of her. She is sensible and considerate, she can out-think me at every turn, and she keeps a remarkably cool head in a crisis. Nonetheless, she does have an Achilles heel, though it is one which I hope will not have reason to cause her any trouble.

She is absolutely fearless.

Yes; I do believe that is a weakness, and I believe it because I was very much the same at her age. I have led a dangerous life, and I had to learn early on to be afraid when necessary. Fear, sometimes, is what keeps us alive.

But it must be kept well controlled. Fear is like fire. It is an excellent servant but a bad master. That, I believe, is why so many people are afraid of showing it; they think that if they do, it will conquer them. I have never worried about that. I do not mind in the least if my enemies see that I am afraid. I know from experience that it usually causes them to underestimate me.

I find fear often lends an edge to my thinking. I can usually talk my way out of a dangerous situation better, rather than worse, for being afraid. Problems can arise, however, when one is dealing with a situation or a person who cannot be reasoned with, and this, inevitably, leads me to the subject of Bangladesh DuPree.

I have no hesitation in saying that Captain DuPree terrified me from the first time I met her. There is no shame at all in that, since she has this effect on almost everyone. What I find so thoroughly unsettling about her is that she is a human being, or, at least, to the best of my knowledge she is; and yet, unlike almost every other human being I have ever met, one can no more reason with her when she is one of her violent moods than one can with an avalanche. And, since she is almost always in one of her violent moods, the best defensive weapon in my armoury is effectively useless against her. She seems to enjoy hurting others simply for its own sake. I would find her much easier to deal with if she looked like a clank.

I am sure, therefore, that you can readily imagine how I felt when Captain DuPree was threatening my life in an alley in Lucknow, and Harriet came up behind her and started pelting her with mangoes. Harriet, of course, had absolutely no idea what kind of person she was dealing with; clearly not a good person, since she was threatening me, but Harriet did not and could not know how dangerous she really was. I was utterly terrified that she would swing round and kill Harriet with one blow. As it happened, Harriet had me far better worked out than I had imagined at the time, and correctly deduced that I would be carrying a gun; her intention had not been to do Captain DuPree any serious damage with the mangoes (a difficult task even against a far less dangerous opponent), but simply to distract her enough to give me the advantage. She did. Nonetheless, I still occasionally wake up in a cold sweat thinking about what might have happened if I had left the gun back at my uncle and aunt's bungalow.

You see now what I mean about Harriet being fearless, and about why this is a potential problem. She is brilliant; but even the most brilliant person does not make correct deductions a hundred per cent of the time. Had she been wrong about my gun, she would be dead now. Had she been as afraid of Captain DuPree as any normal person is, she would have run for help, which would have been a far safer approach. I expect I should have got hurt somewhat during the additional time, but I would certainly still be alive. Captain DuPree has a grudge against me, and was planning to kill me slowly.

One of the things it is extremely important to be able to do, both as a spy and as a diplomat, is to put oneself into other people's shoes in order to understand their motivations. It is extremely difficult to do this with Captain DuPree, because her mode of thought is so alien; however, I can certainly do it to the extent of being able to understand why she has a grudge against me. That is plain enough. She hates to be thwarted. Once she has determined that she will do a thing, she will do it, and woe betide anyone who does anything to prevent her.

She had already decided to kill me once. I am, as you see, still alive. Hence, the grudge.

I can still remember as though it were yesterday. I had seen the approaching danger, read the situation, and slipped round behind one of the Baron's riflemen. It was a simple matter to push him off his perch and relieve him of his rifle; a good soldier, he was, because when he landed he knew he could no longer deal with me, but he kept out of my line of fire and fought creditably until he ran straight into Maxim. I did not see him go down due to what happened next, but I do know what Maxim is like in battle mode. It would have been mercifully quick.

I was concentrating hard. In a situation like that, I knew I had to shoot to kill, not to wound; and if I am forced to kill, I will at least do it cleanly. I was aiming for heads, and that is not so simple in a melee. Consequently, I made the same elementary mistake as the rifle's original owner and failed to keep a proper look-out. The next thing I knew, there was a gun pointed at my own head at point-blank range, and Captain DuPree's voice from above me ordering me to freeze.

For a moment, I almost blacked out. I don't think I have had such a moment of pure concentrated terror in my entire life, although I have been equally close to death on several other occasions. A gun is one thing; but a gun with Captain DuPree behind it is another.

She _is_ fear.

Now, as it happened, we were on the roof of one of the circus wagons, since the Lady Heterodyne was travelling with Mr Payne's Circus at the time. I was not aware that these wagons were really clanks; that would, I feel, have been quite a useful piece of information to have known in the circumstances. Still, no matter. Captain DuPree and I both found out the interesting way. Lady Heterodyne shouted something about “showtime!”, and the wagons... reacted. Even Captain DuPree looked a little frightened for an instant; she is not immune to fear herself, and that is a thing worth knowing. I thought we were both going to be crushed, which was an alarming prospect, although, all things being equal, I would rather be killed by an out-of-control clank than shot by Captain DuPree knowing that she took pleasure in it.

We were not crushed. We fell, and I lost my requisitioned rifle, much to my chagrin; it landed in someone else's hands, I know that much, but by this time things were so chaotic that I could not tell whether its new owner was friend or foe. All around us were charging wagons, battle clanks, fires, people fighting and screaming, and somewhere away in the middle distance in the midst of it all, Baron Wulfenbach's distinctive shock of grey hair. Yes, I thought, as I pulled myself unsteadily to my feet. If he catches me, he'll run me through on the spot for treason.

I was badly bruised, but no worse. Captain Dupree must have been about the same, because she was on her feet at the same time as I was. We turned to look at each other at the same moment.

Then she smiled that terrifying smile, and I heard the click of her safety catch.

“Yessssss,” she hissed.

I'm not the servant of fear, I thought.

“No,” I said. And punched.

I had to run. She was armed, and I wasn't, and even when she was in momentary agony, I knew better than to try to take her gun from her. She carries so many concealed weapons I'm amazed she can sit down without stabbing herself.

Still... I was alive. I'd won that one.

And that's how I always try to deal with fear.


End file.
